The Disgraceful Acts of Columbus and Why Columbus Day Shouldn't Be Celebrated

Growing up in America, young vulnerable kids are taught and develop beliefs that Columbus is amazing, but there's little-discussed about the horrid ways he acted towards our nation’s primary inhabitants. Columbus tortured slaves and indigenous people, and he also contributed immensely to the transatlantic slave trade. The United States of America is considered one of the most advanced and developed countries in the world, but its roots are shameful and are left rather undiscussed in schools of young children.

As an American, it fathoms me how quiet and inconsiderate we are about our past and how the holiday, Columbus Day is annually commemorated. Columbus Day in its entirety is nothing more than a celebration of mass genocide amongst the first people that inhabited our country and it shouldn’t be tolerated. Columbus Day is a symbol larger than itself in which it highlights western imperialism and the conquest of people of color.

The purpose of Columbus Day is to honor and celebrate the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas. Throughout history there have been many heroes that have accelerated and led our country to astounding advancements in many things; Christopher Columbus was not one. In his lifetime, Columbus had one goal, and that goal was to make colonize and profit over anyone and anything despite or without remorse of the consequences. This “hero” in American history shouldn’t be honored in a heroic fashion. In “Examining the Reputation of Christopher Columbus” by Jack Weatherford, Weatherford demonstrates that the torturer and murderer Columbus was no saint but was solely looking out for himself and the profit he could obtain from the Native Americans.

Proceeding on with the preposition that Columbus shouldn’t be celebrated as a national holiday, Dunbar also exemplifies this idea. From Dunbar's book chapter two “Culture of Conquest” he writes “The... land... as chattel was seeded into... the founding of the United States”. Dunbar contributes for the fortification of how Columbus was so inferior to our nation and explains explicitly that the land taken from indigenous farmers and Africans was seeded into the drive for Anglo-American independence from Britain and the founding of the United States. Columbus not only slaughtered Native Americans, but also robbed and took their homes; their fortune; but most importantly, their way of life.

In the written reports by Zinn, he says “...went on rampage and massacred…”. Zinn continues to lead his idea of how crude the English and Columbus were to Native Americans, that with any dispute by the Native Americans led to outright homicide by the English. In this paragraph, Zinn gives detail that they led 347 men, women, and children to bloodshed, which from then on forefronted total war. Columbus as a federal holiday shouldn’t be celebrated. The symbol larger than itself of mass murder is not something we should praise, but rather mourn the death of millions of true Americans.

Columbus is the epitome of a disgrace canned on his own country. Throughout his life, Columbus robbed, slaughtered, and stole from giving and vulnerable human beings. Without a notion of right from wrong, but only a perception of money and murder he led our country to great divides and shambles.